


Tiger

by illwynd



Category: The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
Genre: Blood, Ficlet, M/M, Rough Sex, not what is usually meant by Lokitty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-19
Updated: 2012-08-19
Packaged: 2017-11-12 10:56:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/490121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illwynd/pseuds/illwynd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-Avengers, Loki is imprisoned in Asgard. He isn’t very cooperative.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tiger

Thor has brought his brother home after the debacle on Midgard, and every day he visits Loki in the dungeons beneath the palace.

Loki’s punishment is not cruel, nor is it intended to be. Odin laid down the sentence with a weary heart, hand tight around Gungnir as he watched one son grip the other by the arm—Thor held fast, the whirring silence of the room assaulting his ears and his heart beating out a steady rhythm, _protect him, your brother, always protect him_ —and Loki never met his father’s gaze. Loki did not speak in his own defense even after the gag had been removed. Loki’s eyes seared fire across Thor’s face as the guards tried to lead him away.

Thor’s voice was a crackling of thunder as he relieved them of their duties. “I know the way,” he said.

Thor visits him every day, and Loki’s punishment is not cruel. Thor would not allow it to be. The cell is simple but adequate. He has a place to sleep without discomfort. He is brought food thrice a day.

Loki refuses it all.

Each time Thor comes, he finds Loki curled on the hard floor, his shoulder pressed against the wall, his knees drawn up to his chest. Food untouched.

Once Thor brought him a book of old tales, and the next day when he returned, he had seen it gone from the small bedside table where he had laid it, and he had almost sighed in relief; of course Loki could not resist such a gift. Memories of Loki’s head bowed over a thick text—ink and vellum scent on his fingers—sun slanting in and burnishing the shadow of his hair to a halo of dark copper.

So Thor didn’t recognize the sight at first. The snowy fuzz of paper torn to bits and mounded between Loki’s feet. When Thor gasped, Loki did not even bother to turn his head to the source of the noise.

Thor doesn’t know what to do. When Loki favors him with any acknowledgement at all, it is only to look at him as if he hates him, briefly, his mouth twisted in a vicious frown. He never says a word.

*

There is a fact known on Midgard that has somehow come into Thor’s possession, though he no longer recalls who he heard it from.

There is a Midgardian beast called a tiger. A kind of large cat, known for keeping habits that are strange and solitary for cat-kind. Known for its beautiful coat, designed to live between shadows and light. A beast made to hunt other beasts, its large pink tongue peeking out as it breathes the spiced air. Its yellow-white teeth denting its lips as it licks them. Beautiful and dangerous; and the Midgardians sometimes catch them, keep them in cages barred with iron.

In such conditions, tigers succumb to a strange malady. They begin to pace their cages, toward and away from those who captured them. Some turn seemingly tame; one day they might be fed by hand, petted and revered. But the need wells up. The horror of being so confined. The horror of docility.

Asgard has no tigers, nor anything of their kind.

*

Thor falls to begging and still Loki does not respond to him. 

Not even when Thor sends away the guards, every last one of them, arguing down their protests with the pounding of his fist against the table at which they sit as they watch over their prisoners. Loki still does not speak, but at least then he lifts his head as Thor reenters the cell, and one eyebrow is raised. The green of his eyes glints dark. He looks up at his brother from where he sits, his back to the stone.

Thor should take the pitcher of water from where it waits, tip Loki’s head back with a fist in his hair, make it so he must either drink or drown. He should force food into Loki’s mouth. He should shout and rage and threaten until Loki answers him, even if it is only to curse him and tell him to be gone. None of these are good ideas, but they are what he told himself he would do once he had free rein within the cell to act without being spied upon, and they would at least serve a purpose.

Instead what he does when he drops to his knees and shoves Loki against the stone is to kiss him, his fingers gripping Loki’s shoulders with bruising strength in the moments before Loki’s mouth opens under his.

Thor has missed the taste of his brother. He has missed the feel of him. So much so that he regrets it when Loki’s teeth close on his lower lip and then all he can taste is his own blood, all he can feel is the sharp sting of pain. But he is already tearing at the clothes between them and so he cannot regret it for long.

It is a frantic, hurried coupling, by necessity. The guards will not stay away forever, and Loki snarls when Thor begins to move toward the bed. Instead Loki only sinks lower against the wall, leaning back against it, the cold discomfort making him smile as he pulls himself out of his breeches, spits in his hand and rubs it along his length. Thor’s breath catches but he wastes no time. It burns, stings, and Loki doesn’t take his eyes off him; Loki’s fingers creep under his tunic to find the place where his knife slid in. It is long healed, no more than a hint of a scar, but Loki’s mouth falls open on a moan as he touches it and Thor can see the wet pinkness of his tongue. When Thor comes, he is bent over his brother, feeling every throb and twitch inside him as he rocks back and forth, and his arms are wrapped around Loki’s neck, and Thor tries not to whisper the ridiculous endearments that Loki always hated to hear even though he can think of nothing else. It is only moments later that Loki sinks his teeth into Thor’s shoulder, digs his fingernails into Thor’s back, bucks up hard into him, groaning so deep in his throat that Thor can feel the thrum of it running through both their bodies.

Thor climbs off him hastily, already aching in several places; Loki takes the moment to move, reclining on an elbow, one knee bent, a lazy hand rubbing away the traces from the skin of his belly. As Thor goes to pull his garments back on, he is startled by Loki’s hand tugging at his wrist. Aside from what they had just done, Loki had not willingly touched him since they fought on Midgard.

He turns back, lets Loki manipulate him, turning him this way and that, and the edge of Loki’s mouth is tugged up into a smile made ruddy by the last traces of Thor’s blood on his lips. Thor realizes Loki is surveying the burgeoning bruises, the red trails where he raked his hands along Thor’s body. When at last Loki releases him with a sated look and a sigh, Thor goes for the pitcher of water, drains half of it, goes and plunks himself down beside Loki on the floor, offers it without a word.

Loki holds it between his hands and tilts his head back, swallowing a long draught and letting a sparkling stream flow down his neck, letting it splash against his skin.

Thor cannot help but watch him and feel his own heart beating, hear its rhythm in his chest. Cannot help but think that even like this, a prisoner where he was once a king, Loki is beautiful.

Loki sees his look and gives a low, pleased laugh, and for the first time since Midgard, he speaks.

“You did indeed miss me, brother, did you not?”

Thor nods fervently, and when he meets Loki’s eyes, they are a green that reflects some other sky, dark and heavy with distant storms.

~


End file.
